1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a refrigerator door supporting structure, and more particularly to a refrigerator door supporting structure rotatively installed to a refrigerator.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A conventional refrigerator is designed to store foodstuffs for a long period of time by using a freezing cycle of a refrigerant. The refrigerator includes a refrigerating chamber for storing foodstuffs in a non-frozen state for a short period of time and a freezing chamber for freezing and storing foodstuffs for a long period of time.
The refrigerator, as shown in FIG. 4, is provided with a case 50 divided into a refrigerating chamber and a freezing chamber refrigerating and freezing chamber doors 51, 52 rotatively installed for opening and closing respective chambers, and upper, middle and lower hinges 53, 54, 55 disposed at three different positions between the case and refrigerating and freezing chamber doors 51, 52, thereby forming an appearance of the refrigerator.
In other words, the upper, middle and lower hinges 53, 54, 55 are installed for rotatively supporting the refrigerating and freezing chambers doors 51, 52.
The upper hinges 53, as shown in FIG. 5, includes a case 50, a hinge plate 58 fixed with a bolt at one upper end of the case 50 and formed with a rotation protruder 57 at the other upper end, and an insertion member 59 fixed at an upper surface of the freezing chamber door 52 for getting the rotation protruder 57 inserted for smooth rotation.
Upper surface of the refrigerating chamber door 51 is supported at the middle hinge 54 while the refrigerating chamber door 51 is securely placed at the lower hinge 55. After the upper surface of the refrigerating chamber door 51 is supported at the middle hinge 54, the freezing chamber door 52 is securely positioned at the middle hinge 54. Then, the rotation protruder 57 at one end of the hinge plate 58 is inserted into the insertion member 59 of the freezing chamber door 52 and the other end of the hinge plate 58 is bolted at the upper surface of the case 50 for fixation.
The upper, middle and lower hinges 53, 54, 55 should be fixed on the case 50 firmly enough to support the weight of the doors of the refrigerator which is recently being made bigger and bigger.
Since refrigerators tend to be produced in a bigger size these days and the case thereof is tightly attached to the chamber doors, there arises a problem in the course of disassembling and reassembling an upper hinge at the uppermost area of the door when a big-sized refrigerator is moved through a relatively small gate of a house or an apartment owned by a user.
In other words, when an upper hinge is firmly assembled to the case of the refrigerator, a worker should perform the disassembling and reassembling tasks of the upper hinge on a big chair and the like for safe movement of the refrigerator through the gate, which causes much inconvenience and complication. There is an additional problem of the conventional refrigerator supporting structure in that job efficiency is decreased in assembling and disassembling the doors of the refrigerator.